Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • How to Bring the Fun and Excitement of Traveling to Your Everyday Life

    How to Bring the Fun and Excitement of Traveling to Your Everyday Life

    “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” ~Seth Godin

    Over the last few years I’ve felt a little trapped in a cycle of travel, normal life, travel, normal life, constantly changing externals in an attempt to find a level of contentment.

    I travel because it excites me, makes me feel alive, and brings me satisfaction. Then, when the draw of home and seeing loved ones sets in, I’ll return, determined to get a “real job” and settle into daily English life.

    This usually lasts a year or two before the boredom and dissatisfaction set in and I head off on another adventure.

    Although there is nothing wrong with this existence, the last time the “real life suffocation” set in, I decided to stay to explore those feelings so I could understand what made me feel so alive when I was away and so suffocated when I was at home.

    I wanted to discover what away has that home doesn’t—apart from the beautiful vistas, constant change, and sunshine—and if there was any way I could incorporate the feelings of being away when I was back at home.

    Here’s what I found.

    Be More Mindful in Your Daily Life

    I was sitting in a dark, dank Northern Line tube carriage on my daily forty-five-minute commute into central London when I decided, for a change, to look up from my headphone-induced daydream and be totally present in that moment.

    I started to hear the sounds of the carriage slicing its way through the underground maze. I studied (in a non-creepy way) the sullen faces of my fellow commuters, who appeared lost in their own daydreams, when it struck me:

    When I’m away, I am always fully present in every experience, no matter how mundane or challenging. 

    When I am trying to be a “real life participant,” I lose that focus and attention to detail, often forgetting completely to be present.

    Instead, I go through daily experiences almost on autopilot—head down, headphones in, coffee slurped in a rush, lunch eaten at my desk in between dealing with an ever-growing inbox of emails.

    If I were away—sitting in a café in New Zealand, on a bus in Costa Rica, or on a beach in Mexico—my eyes would be peeled, studying every color, creature, person, or thing; my ears would be pricked to the sounds of chattering or wildlife; I’d taste every sip of each thirst-quenching drink or bite of a spicy meal; I’d pay attention to the smell of car fumes, or tropical trees. I’d invite magical experiences and synchronicity into each day.

    Be fully present in every moment, no matter how mundane. Be nowhere else but where you are and notice how your mindset changes.

    Surround Yourself with Your Kind

    It always surprises me, every time I come home from being away, how little has changed. Some people are still complaining about their other halves or another friend, regarding something trivial that happened five years ago.

    I sometimes find myself, in groups of people I love, feeling like a black sheep, uninterested in the hearsay chatter, feeling so very different from them. I don’t view them or myself as any better or worse off for our life choices; we each carve our own path aligned to what makes us happy.

    But I have often dedicated time to people at home, due to habit or obligation, that I might not have if I had met them when I was away.

    I’ve been faced, at times, with questions such as: Are you going to be putting your life on hold again to go away? Shouldn’t you start thinking about settling down at your age?

    The beauty of life is you always have a choice. You get to choose who is in your tribe.

    They say you’re the average of the five people you spend most of your time with. Don’t turn your back on people from your past, but give yourself permission to move on from relationships that don’t serve you, or that bring you down.

    When you’re on an adventure and you meet someone you connect with, you spend time with them and perhaps even share part of your journey with them; and there are those you don’t connect with, so you both move on. It’s okay to apply this to “real life” too.

    Choose your five people (who you spend most of your time with) carefully, just as you would when you’re away.

    Kill Your TV

    Seriously. Put it on eBay and buy yourself a concert ticket or a ton of new books. When you’re traveling or on holiday, when do you ever watch TV? The occasional film or show, sure. But you likely wouldn’t spend your evenings or weekends sitting in front of a box, starting at it.

    Okay, so maybe don’t get rid of your TV altogether, but you could cut down on how much TV you watch. I hear so many people say, “I haven’t got time to…go to yoga, read, cook, learn something new, draw, play an instrument, be creative, meditate…,” yet they can tell you who’s on Celebrity Big Brother, who’s been voted out of The X Factor, or how many times they’ve seen the same episode of Dinner Date.

    Don’t deny yourself your favorite show if it brings you joy, but keep it in a healthy balance with other activities you enjoy when you’re away. Read, go exploring, meditate, go for a walk, go see a local band play. Stay active, stay curious.

    Be Authentic

    It should be so easy to be yourself, because that’s who you are! But often we find ourselves in jobs, careers, situations, or relationships where we barely recognize ourselves. Cue the “square peg in a round hole” feeling.

    I tried so hard in the past, when home, to care about what my peers cared about—DIY, pay scales, job titles—but I just couldn’t.

    I was trying to follow a career path that didn’t feel aligned with my passions, but it just led me to those feelings of being trapped or suffocated, and in turn resulting in a “run away” adventure to escape and take a big gasp of air.

    It is so important to prioritize staying connected with yourself and your own happiness in everyday life, much like you do on vacation. By doing so, you will show up as your best self in your relationships, commitments, and responsibilities.

    You cannot serve others or your work effectively if you are not being true to yourself or them.

    Write down, explore, and really understand what it is you love about yourself and your experiences when you’re away.

    An easy way to do this is to write down the details of your favorite vacation or trip.

    What made it so special? What did you allow yourself to do in order to make yourself happy? What did you love about yourself in that experience? Was it wild adventure or cultural break? Did you take time out for relaxation, walking, or a massage?

    Be clear on what you love, what makes you come alive, and try to incorporate that into your “real life.”

    For me, I came to realize that I love spontaneity and change, I love being by the sea or in wild open spaces, I love being with and supporting people, and I’m not very good with routine. Therefore, chasing a nine-to-five management career in London simply because it looked good on my resume or paid well wasn’t serving my authentic self.

    You don’t have to move to the country or turn your life upside down to be authentic, but rather simply identify the treasures, passions, and interests you’ve uncovered for yourself when adventuring, and then make time for and prioritize them into your “real life” at home.

    Join an activity group, write, volunteer, use your weekends wisely, and be unapologetically you, wherever you are on the planet and whatever situation you find yourself in.

    And probably most importantly, try not to see “home” and “away” as two separate lives.

    Your adventuring isn’t running away; it is a rich life experience. Similarly, don’t see being home as set rules of shoulds or musts to be followed.

    There is a beautiful sweet spot in between the two, that, with some time and exploration, you can find.

  • Falling Apart at Inconvenient Times: Why There Is No Shame in Public Pain

    Falling Apart at Inconvenient Times: Why There Is No Shame in Public Pain

    Sad Girl

    “The major block to compassion is the judgment in our minds. Judgment is the mind’s primary tool of separation.” ~David R. Hamilton

    On the evening of October 28, 2014, the phone rang. When I heard my stepmother’s voice, immediately, I thought, “This can’t be good.”

    Last I had heard, my father was resting comfortably after routine surgery earlier that day. Now it was past midnight in North Carolina.

    “Jill,” my stepmother implored, “please talk to the nurses. I have no idea what they are trying to tell me.” Sometimes we cannot listen to what we do not want to hear.

    The nurse came on the phone and confirmed my worst fears. My father had suddenly become septic and was quickly heading into multiple organ failure.

    In her “I’m trying to tell a complete stranger her father is dying in the nicest way possible” kind of voice, the nurse told me I might want to make plans to get out there as soon as possible; now would be good.

    I booked the first available flight. Sleepless and terrified, I boarded the plane. After settling into my seat, a lifetime of Dad memories raced through my mind. A lump in my throat began to rise and swell at the thought of seeing my father, helpless and frail, making his way from this world to the next.

    “Please don’t lose it on this plane,” I carefully cajoled myself.

    A distraction seemed in order, so I put the earbuds in, set the music to shuffle, and held my breath. As luck would have it, the first song depicted a powerful tale of loss that felt like an illuminated road sign on a dark, lonely highway. Death is a road we all travel.

    When I heard the words of my own story, told by someone I had never met, I couldn’t hold back anymore. First a few quiet tears, followed by the full-on ugly cry—right there in row 17, seat C.

    “Oh dear,” I thought, “I am officially that person.”

    We all know that person: the one who breaks into tears in the grocery line after discovering “happily ever after” was not to be. The co-worker stifling sobs behind the fourth-floor bathroom stall when he learns he is next to be downsized. Or, in my case, the middle-aged woman in 17C trying desperately to get home in time to say goodbye to her father.

    Amidst heaving sobs, I glanced across the aisle and met the gaze of a fellow passenger. With only his eyes, he kindly whispered, “Yep. You’re that person.” With only my eyes, in return, I answered, “Yep. You’re right.”

    It was as if life had stolen my undergarments and hung them in the public square to dry. I felt exposed, raw, ashamed. If only my feelings would have shown up on schedule, preferably in the privacy of my own home, thank you very much.

    Humans can be parsed into two categories: those who have been that person and those who will be. Like a rude party guest, the unsoothable pain of loss can show up, uninvited, at the worst possible times and demand from us things we don’t want to give.

    So often we shun grief or sorrow that cannot wait for a convenient time to be felt. Perhaps witnessing another’s sorrow ignites our own, so we create a safe distance with our judgment: “Some people really oughta learn how to keep it together.”

    We wouldn’t tell a child in pain to knock it off and keep it together. Why would we say this to ourselves? Why would we demand this from others?

    I regret to inform you feelings cannot be scheduled. There will be moments when the thread unspools faster than we can wind it. This is okay.

    Feelings do not need to be fixed because they are not broken; neither are you.

    It is when we are most vulnerable that we are most deserving of our own loving-kindness. Those song lyrics and the compassion in my aisle mate’s eyes were the only things I needed that day. While it didn’t make the pain stop, I did feel a little less alone with it, which made all the difference.

    We know that person because we are that person.

    When it is your turn in the cosmic hot seat, I invite you to offer yourself the blessing of your own loving grace. Speak to yourself as you would a child in pain. If you get the honor of bearing witness to another’s unspooling, why not offer your fellow human the same blessing: I see you. I hear you. I love you.

    Sad girl image via Shutterstock

  • It’s Not Settling to Love Someone Who Doesn’t Match Your Fantasy

    It’s Not Settling to Love Someone Who Doesn’t Match Your Fantasy

    Couple in Love

    “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    I’ve always been a dreamer. A really big dreamer. For the most part, it’s served me well. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. A private college, magna cum laude, while raising four children alone. I don’t do mediocrity.

    I worked hard and brought our family out of poverty singlehandedly. We moved to a better neighborhood, built a nice house, and went on vacations. I was no ordinary woman. I’d much prefer to raise those kids alone than to settle for the companionship of a mere mortal man.

    The man I sought had to be equally well-educated, ambitious, successful, attractive, and generous.

    I also would have preferred that he not want any children and would be happy to help me raise mine since I had so many.

    Finally, he had to be well-read, close to my own age, and not addicted to television. I froze out the older men who would have been happy to date me.

    Guess what happened? I raised those four kids alone while reading every self-help book I could find and begging every deity I could think of to send me a mate. I absolutely refused to “settle.”

    It’s very common for people who’ve been single for a long time to say that they won’t settle. They maintain that they could have been married or in a relationship by this time if they’d settled, but they are going to hold out for the best.

    How about you? Are you holding out for a “package,” a person who possesses all of the qualities on a list you’ve made?

    If so, I’d like to encourage you to consider the value of having a flesh and blood human being in your life to love you, care when you’ve had a bad day at work, or bring you soup when you’re sick. You’ll have the opportunity to experience loving this person back and sharing your life with them. It’s tough to cuddle up to a list.

    The truth is, dating someone who doesn’t possess every quality you wish for isn’t the same thing as settling. You probably don’t have every trait your would-be mate desires and whether you realize it or not, you’ve already been settling.

    Being open to dating outside your type is not settling. Most of us understand that we’re not going to get every single thing we want in life and it really is okay.

    You don’t refuse to find a place to live just because you can’t afford a ten-bedroom mansion. Instead, you buy or rent a place within your means and go on about your business. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do and most of us are fine with the concept until we consider dating. Then we insist on “having it all.”

    If you’re only 5’4”, does he really have to be over six feet tall? Wouldn’t you prefer that he was kind to you? If she’s at the gym five times a week, but doesn’t want to be your girlfriend because she’s still seeing other men, what’s the point?

    If you have a “list,” consider which items are the most important to you and prioritize them. You’re probably not going to find someone who has everything you want, but you can find someone who has what you value most highly.

    Consider what traits add value to a relationship. For example, “chemistry” and “sense of humor” are fun and necessary to some extent, but “conflict resolution” and “good character” can make or break a long-term partnership. These qualities may not be as romantic, but where’s the last person you had off the charts chemistry with right now?

    When you meet someone you really like, that person most likely will need to give up a few items on his or her wish list in order to be with you. He may have wanted someone who loved college football, she may have preferred someone taller. There may be unanticipated differences in political opinions, food preferences, or hobbies.

    No matter what desired traits are being given up, your intended will hopefully choose to be with you, a real person, instead of holding out for someone who possesses qualities on a list. Ideally, he or she will realize that the person their list describes may not exist, but you do. You are here with them now and offering them a chance at love.

    They can make the most of this chance now, or refuse to settle and relinquish the opportunity to be with you. Sadly, many of us do move on in pursuit of “the list” and continue to do so for years despite the lack of evidence that this mythical person exists.

    Refusing to settle is often cited as the reason for being single, but if you think about it you’ll realize that you’ve been settling all along.

    Most likely, you’ve settled for years alone or you’ve been dating people who haven’t been treating you well. You let them get away with their subpar treatment of you because of the chemistry you feel, their success, or physical appeal.

    Did you dump that nice guy who was only an inch taller than you for the six foot tall MBA who never had time for you? What about blowing off the sweet but slightly insecure girl for the more mysterious, harder to get woman who ended up cheating on you? That’s settling.

    I myself finally learned the value of prioritization, and after more than a decade alone found myself with a wonderful man.

    He doesn’t go to the gym, eat kale, or share my religion, but he adores me. I feel safe with him, and he lets me know how loved I am every single day. It turns out that being the apple of someone’s eye is a wonderful experience and very much worth “settling” for.

    Surface traits are very enticing, but they do not offer much in the way of long-term relationship potential.

    Don’t trade an idea that has no basis in reality for the experience of having love in your life. The person your list describes likely doesn’t exist, and if he or she does, once you get to know them, you may find they’re not perfect either. If what you really want is a fulfilling relationship, open your heart and prioritize love today.

    Couple in love image via Shutterstock

  • The Key to Breaking Painful, Unhealthy Relationship Patterns

    The Key to Breaking Painful, Unhealthy Relationship Patterns

    Sad girl with heart

    “Forgiveness is just another name for freedom.” ~Byron Katie

    Aside from the fact that I was born on Groundhog Day, I didn’t know why I kept falling into the same relationship patterns, which inevitably led to heart-crushing breakups.

    I knew that I had a deep capacity to love, or so I thought, but it somehow wasn’t enough. I always ended up either feeling taken for granted or fighting desperately for my partner’s attention after the initial attraction phase wore off.

    I couldn’t help becoming someone else, someone I thought I needed to be in order to avoid being abandoned. This, of course, backfired, because it further lowered my self-esteem and caused me become even clingier and more neurotic.

    It was hard to not get down on myself for who I became in relationships. I didn’t know how to process the end of a relationship or how to separate what was my partner’s emotional stuff and what was mine, so I walked into the next relationship with accumulated anger, resentments, and taller walls around my heart.

    It was easier to blame the guy for being emotionally unavailable, withdrawn, selfish, and all the other names I called him. This went on for over a decade.

    Still, somehow my divorce was peaceful, and at times I even called my ex-husband in despair after a breakup, crying, “He doesn’t want me anymore.”

    He’d jokingly say, “Well, you shouldn’t have divorced me.”

    I knew what he meant. And I knew why I called him. It was the only relationship that didn’t blow up in my face at the end. I needed to see that I wasn’t a complete and utter mess and that I had something good to offer in a relationship, even if it didn’t last forever. We were able to remain friends who talked a few times a year.

    After my third heartbreak, I knew that something had to give. I became very depressed and lost hope for being able to have a happy relationship that didn’t end in divorce or a dramatic breakup.

    I kept asking the Universe, “Why am I not healing? What is wrong with me? Why do I end up falling in love with unavailable men and then clinging onto them for dear life?”

    I prayed all day, every day. My hope was eroding fast and my self-rejection was growing by leaps and bounds.

    The answer came in the form of one word: forgiveness.

    To be honest, I was not interested in forgiving anything or anyone. I wouldn’t even know where to begin or who to forgive. Instead, I just added more toxicity to my pain by letting resentments turn to hate. This gave me a false sense of power and the illusion of protection from further pain, disappointment, deception, and betrayal. I felt like I’d had enough of all of these.

    In my mind, forgiveness meant that I would die without receiving compensation for the ways I’d been wronged. That was just not okay.

    I sat on my throne of righteous indignation for a few more weeks. In the meantime, I was twisted up in knots over the guilt I felt from having hurt all my partners, which I didn’t know what to do with either.

    I wrote an email to my last boyfriend, which he didn’t respond to. That hurt even more. I got to feel what it’s like to not be forgiven for the mistakes you’ve made.

    Non-forgiveness may feel like power and protection, but it ends up becoming a lonely, self-made prison cell. At that point, I knew that I was creating more unhappiness and loneliness for myself.

    I finally gave in. Even though it took weeks for my ego to calm down and open to the idea of looking at who and what I needed to forgive, the thought alone started to make me feel lighter.

    Since my biggest pain revolved around men, I started with my father.

    In my last three relationships, I had relived the trauma I’d experienced with my dad.

    My father loved his younger sister more than any of us and was never shy about expressing it. As a little girl, I watched my father adore my aunt in ways I longed to be adored by him. She was a grown woman, only eight years younger than him, but he treated her like his beloved little girl he would bend over backward to please.

    What I got was mostly scolding, angry, disapproving eyes from him. I knew that he was capable of offering love to someone, but that someone was not me. My aunt had already filled that spot before I was born (not her fault) and there was nothing I could do to be daddy’s little girl.

    I felt helpless. He was the only father I had, and I was too young to seek other solutions.

    Of course, the men I fell in love with played this part really well: They all had a former lover they couldn’t get over, they had a wandering eye that left me feeling as if I weren’t enough for them, or they were burned out from showering their former partners with adoration and getting hurt in the end.

    They were wounded by those partners (and possibly their own mothers), so they either didn’t know how to connect intimately with a woman and commit to her, or they were too burned to risk going there again. Regardless, I was getting the short end of the stick despite how much I loved them.

    As I wrote my story, I started seeing the threads. I prayed for this pattern to be healed and lifted up from my consciousness, burned the pages along with it, and let go of the outcome.

    I waited for the process to start working and watched for signs. Nothing seemed different for a while. I was still grieving and feeling remorse for my own mistakes.

    Then I realized that I had to process my “love story” from the vantage point of my former lovers and forgive myself as well. The other side of the non-forgiveness medal was guilt. Both were toxic and blocks to my happiness.

    So I wrote about my mistakes and again asked the Universe to give me a clean slate. At this point, knowing that there was nothing I could do, I put all my focus on caring for myself and making plans to achieve my goals. I wasn’t in charge of the Universe and couldn’t dictate when the healing was supposed to come.

    A few days later my last partner called and said that he wanted to have a heart-to-heart conversation with me. I didn’t know whether he wanted to yell at me or talk about patching things up, but I agreed to meet. I had nothing to lose.

    I called a good friend and told him what had happened and all about my forgiveness process. As I was telling him the story, it felt as if the person who was talking was not me. My words were softer; there wasn’t a trace of anger or blame left in them.

    I heard myself say, “It’s no one’s fault, you know. We are all trying to find healing. Even my father. He didn’t know how to be with his daughter. His relationship with my aunt was safe. For some reason it was in the cards for me to experience that neglect so I could use it for something greater.”

    In that moment I felt my heart open. I saw the walls around my heart melt away in my mind’s eye. He was quiet for the longest minute. Then he said, “Banu, this is the most loving thing I have ever heard you say. I am speechless.”

    I can’t explain what a miracle is, but I now know they exist.

    My former partner and I had our talk, and I was able to hear his side without getting defensive or attacking back. I was no longer looking at him and seeing my dad. I could just see Jim as Jim, as the man I love and as someone whose healing I could contribute to by giving him the gift of seeing who he truly is.

    After our talk, as we started spending time together, I found myself actually seeing him for the first time. He was freed from the role he had to play for me in order to get to this place of forgiveness. He was free to be himself.

    The future of us? Who knows? We decided to take it one day at a time and rebuild trust. I no longer feel the need to make him do or be anything.

    My heart is at peace knowing that I now have something more to offer in a relationship than my projections and resentments from the past, which have nothing to do with the person I am relating to. I have to tell you, I feel like a new person.

    Your pain served a purpose and brought you to this place where you can also recognize your own patterns, if you’re willing to look for them. In a way, those unhealthy relationships were gifts because they provided clues as to what needs healing in your life. So give forgiveness a chance. That is the only way to wipe your slate clean.

    Recognize that we are all perfectly imperfect—we’re all working through our own patterns and trying to heal our pain—and that forgiveness is the biggest gift you can give yourself and anyone. I hope that you can have this. You are worth it.

    Sad girl with heart image via Shutterstock

  • The Joy of Doing Less: 3 Ways to Reclaim Your Time

    The Joy of Doing Less: 3 Ways to Reclaim Your Time

    Clock and Flip Flops

    “Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all.” ~Nathan W. Morris

    I began 2015 by cleaning out my closet. I sold and donated and trashed the pieces that weren’t serving me anymore. Embarrassingly enough, I purged nearly 100 items. It felt great. Getting rid of stuff and seeing beauty behind the clutter was incredible. But this story isn’t really about my closet.

    It’s also not about my desk drawers, my linen closet, or my kitchen, which all came next. As it turns out, getting rid of clutter and extra things was just the tip of the iceberg. In the same way that buying things didn’t make me feel better, getting rid of things wasn’t really the solution, either.

    What I initially imagined as an exercise in clothing minimalism has turned into a pursuit of “better, but less” across all areas of my life. So I started thinking about what it was that I valued most, that I wanted more of most. The answer? Time.

    I wanted time to finish what I started. I wanted time with my most important people. I wanted time for pleasure and healing. And I wanted time to go slowly. After nearly a year, the result is more joy, more freedom, more space for what matters.

    So how can you declutter your schedule and create better priorities? It’s about crafting joy through not just having less, but doing less. Here are some ideas on how to make it happen:

    Honestly look at what you’re already committed to.

    None of this works if you aren’t honest about what’s already in your schedule. From major work commitments to how much time you’re choosing to be on Facebook, keep a candid journal on where your time goes. Watch this for a little while. Try not to judge yourself, but look at what you’re prioritizing, consciously or unconsciously.

    Once you see what you’re committed to and how you’re spending your time, you can start to edit. Does what’s on your schedule line up with your values and goals? Or is it time to make a shift?

    I realized that I was committed to far too many projects, and that I wasn’t able to do them all well. I also acknowledged that I needed what I call “integration time”—a buffer where I could process new lessons or emotional events.

    Since then, I’ve signed up for fewer classes and scheduled more time for myself to integrate what I’m learning.

    I’ve scaled back the number of happy hours I attend in exchange for coffee dates during the day. This leaves me quiet evenings at home for reading, crafting, and relaxing.

    I’ve also pared back the number of political causes I’m a part of, choosing to focus on one or two important projects at a time.

    Follow the “three thing” rule.

    It’s like the old saying: “If everything is a priority, then nothing is.” Choose three things that are the real priorities in your life. Start small. What are the three things you want to accomplish today? Start with those as the skeleton of your day, and build everything else around them.

    You might not do those three things first, chronologically, but arrange your day so that you’re sure they’ll happen. Or, you may find that unless you make time for reading, meditation, or exercise before work, that it won’t happen.

    I’ve noticed that this “three thing” rule is also a good boundary for understanding when I’ve done “enough.” As someone who has a hard time switching off sometimes, using the three thing rule as a guidepost can help me to know when to call it a day. If I’ve accomplished what I absolutely need to, then maybe I can afford stop work to go for a walk or make a great home-cooked meal.

    Honing in on only three things helps us to clear the noise and distractions so that we can focus on what feels most meaningful. You can start to extrapolate, too: what are the three things you want to make sure happen this week? This month? This year? Choosing only three makes sure that we are ruthlessly clear on what matters most.

    Start saying no.

    This one is pretty simple. If it’s not supporting your values, your priorities, your “three things” or your inner well-being, it has to be a no.

    I suggest that for a set period of time (two weeks tends to do the trick), everything that isn’t already on your plate is a no. This gives your brain and schedule a break from more input before you dive in again.

    Of course, there are times when it’s not reasonable to drop everything, such as if you’re caring for a child or aging parents. If this is the case, it’s even more important to pare down the nonessential, and maybe even ask for help.

    The ability to craft elegant boundaries and a good rubric for new commitments can be a process. But over time, you’ll learn to trust your intuition. In the meantime, get some practice in confidently saying no. People in your life will also learn how to hear your no, and respect it.

    If lots of noes seem awkward to you, just remember that you’re actually saying yes to what you really want.

    When I was caring for my mom when she was ill a few years ago, I needed a lot of time to recharge in between visits. Some friends were offended when I turned down plans; others actually responded with offers of support.

    Just by being honest, and a little vulnerable, with what I needed (time and space to digest), I was able to get it. What a novel concept!

    —

    I’ve spent the last year rigorously employing these tactics to free myself from overwhelm and commitments that stopped feeling good. This has meant paring back my volunteer commitments and some community classes where I’d been involved. It’s meant saying no to enticing invitations and choosing not to sign up for fascinating opportunities.

    This might have been awkward, but I find that most people are familiar with that feeling of overwhelm. They recognize it in themselves. Most people actually respect that I’m choosing to honor my well-being in this way, and that I’m interested in quality over quantity.

    The results of scaling back were really surprising to me. Doing less not only gives me more space for my own care, but it actually allows me to make a greater impact. I’m doing less, but I’m doing it with more grace and accountability. I do what I say I’m going to do. I have the time and space to follow through well on my commitments.

    By doing less, I’m able to show up more present for the people in my life and be more grounded in the present moment. By focusing on fewer projects, commitments and calendar-clutter, I’m doing less, but I’m doing everything fully—and with far more joy.

    Clock and flip flops image via Shutterstock

  • How to Use Self-Care for a Brighter, Less Stressful Life

    How to Use Self-Care for a Brighter, Less Stressful Life

    Girl Doing Yoga

    “The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” ~Sydney Harris

    I was working myself into the ground and I knew it. Balancing a full-time job, my fledgling business, studies, home life, and relationships, I was constantly feeling the pressure and slowly, the cracks were showing.

    I was exhausted, I was argumentative, I wasn’t taking care of my health, and my business had transformed from my creative outlet to a source of incredible stress.

    I kept thinking, “I just need one day to relax, just one day!” but even when I had the chance, I couldn’t let go of the pressure I was allowing to take over my life. I felt like I was stuck in a never-ending cycle and I couldn’t escape.

    Of course, I knew I needed to take better care of myself and my health. Deliberately not getting enough sleep so I could work more, skipping yoga to write articles, eating breakfast at lunch time and relying on coffee could only ever take me so far.

    Eventually, I realized that if I wanted to create a life I loved, I needed to start taking self-care a little more seriously. Even though I was ticking the boxes professionally and in my business, I knew I wanted so much more that that.

    What about adventure? What about long baths and good books? What about eating regularly and moving my body? What about sleeping in and taking my dog for walks? I was replacing all of these things that light me up with a cycle of stress, fear, and overwhelm.

    It was time to change.

    I started off small, with a daily five-minute meditation. I figured that no matter what was happening, I could take just five minutes for myself each day!

    After a couple of days, I started to notice how much I was looking forward to my meditations. They refreshed and refocused my mind, uplifted my spirits, and gave me the chance I needed to take a break (even if it was for just a short time).

    As I noticed how these meditations positively affected the way I felt, the way I worked, and the way I thought, I decided it was time to dive deep into this mindful, self-care thing. And I haven’t looked back.

    To bring more mindfulness and self-care into your own life (even when you’re busy!), feel free to try the tips below!

    Take a deep breath, regularly.

    It really is amazing what a simple breath can do! Whenever I’m starting to feel overwhelmed or stressed, my first act of self-care is to take one deep breath. Straight away, I feel any tension in my body begin to release.

    Sometimes that simple breath is enough to refresh and refocus. Sometimes I feel like I need to take a few more breaths. Sometimes I realize that I need a proper break because I’m feeling so overwhelmed that I won’t be doing my best work anyway.

    The beauty of taking a deep breath is that it’s one of the shortest forms of self-care I know! Even if I were to practice it fifty times a day, it would still only take a minute or two, altogether.

    The other wonderful thing about deep breathing is that you can do it anywhere, at anytime. Whether you’re halfway through an exciting meeting, on the cusp of finishing a project, dealing with conflict, or anything in between, you can allow yourself to take that little bit of time to breathe.

    Journal with gratitude.

    Embracing gratitude is another simple way to show yourself some meaningful self-care and inject happiness into your day. I noticed that the more I looked for things to be grateful for, the more I found.

    The wonderful thing about keeping a gratitude journal is that it starts to train your mind to notice the good in your life. Whether you have a safe home, access to nutritious food, an encouraging support network, a healthy body, a beloved pet, or a stable job, gratitude helps you to acknowledge those wonderful things.

    Before I started deliberately practicing gratitude, it was natural for me to focus on the negative aspects of my life because I believed that’s how I would fix them.

    If I kept thinking about not having enough money, it would drive me to make more. If I focused on not going to the gym often enough, I would guilt myself into showing up. If I noticed the things which weren’t going well at work, I would motivate myself to make meaningful changes.

    While that kind of thinking can be useful sometimes, it’s important to keep our eyes open to the good things, too. Our strengths. Our family and friends. Realizing that even if we want more, we actually do have enough.

    Simply note down a few things you’re grateful for at the end of each day to start flexing that powerful gratitude muscle!

    Listen to your body and its needs.

    You know when you’re exhausted, but there’s just one more email to answer? Then, you realize that the dishes need to be washed. And you really should take a shower… Suddenly, it’s after midnight and your alarm is set to go off in less than six hours and just the thought of another exhausting day tomorrow is enough to make you want to cry.

    It doesn’t have to be like that.

    Yes, life gets busy. There might be lots of things to do. However, I noticed that my life started to feel a whole lot lighter when I decided to prioritize my needs above everything else.

    When I’m tired, I try to head to bed early or take a nap. When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m feeling particularly stressed, I go to yoga or meditate.

    All I had to do was start listening to my body and choosing to honor what it was telling me.

    After all, the emails can wait until morning, I can ask someone else to do the dishes and as for a shower—well, that’s what dry shampoo and deodorant is for!

    Learn to say no.

    There’s a big reason why I often had so much going on that I felt like I was drowning—I just couldn’t say no.

    Not only did I struggle to say no to others, I also found it harder to say no to myself. New idea for an upgrade to my website? Sure. Home-cooked meal and dessert? Why not. Exercise? Of course.

    Learning to say no to others, but more importantly, to myself, was one of the biggest stress relievers and forms of self-care I’ve found.

    It’s quite simple, really. “No, thank you.” You’re allowed to say it! You know you want to…

    Go for a mindful walk.

    Sometimes, we just need a good, old break. Time to be alone, away from technology, in nature and in the moment.

    There are several ways to go for a mindful walk, but my favorite method is to really tune into my sense of sight.

    You can easily try this, too. When you go for a walk, notice all the things you can see. What colors are there around you? What have you not seen before? What does the weather look like? Which natural things do you notice? What about man-made things?

    Simply choose to experience the wealth of sights around you for a refreshing, mindful walk.

    Bonus tip: Remember, you’re in charge, here.

    If self-care is something you want, or need, then go for it! Do what feels good for you, lights you up, and reduces stress and overwhelm.

    If one minute a day is all you can manage, that’s okay!

    If you need a week to unwind, take a break and do some of your favorite things, that’s okay, too!

    It’s entirely up to you.

    Girl doing yoga image via Shutterstock

  • How to Overcome Fear and Live Your Dream by Changing Your Brain

    How to Overcome Fear and Live Your Dream by Changing Your Brain

    “Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” ~Les Brown

    Fear used to be the driving force in my life.

    I didn’t even know that I was living in fear at the time. I hid behind labels like “stress” and “anxiety,” but those are just clinical terms for fear.

    Truthfully, my dreams terrified me because they seemed way too big to achieve. At the time, I wanted to excel in my new career, get into the best shape of my life, and create meaningful relationships—and I felt like I had a long way to go.

    So naturally, I got really stressed out.

    And why, oh why, did it feel okay?

    It seems like stress is such commonplace now that we think we’re slackers if we don’t feel tense all the time. But that’s just our fear finding excuses to stick around.

    Once I finally realized that stress was just an option, I started looking for a way through it. And I found the answers in a simple Japanese philosophy called Kaizen, which is the practice of continuous improvement through small, consistent steps.

    I learned that whenever we’re scared about making change it’s because the steps we’re taking are too big, and these leaps of faith will trigger a life-saving biological response: fear.

    But luckily, there’s a way to turn that fear off, and it all starts with your brain, specifically your amygdala.

    Shut Down Your Amygdala by Asking Tiny Questions

    Your amygdala plays a heavy role in your fight-or-flight response, a physiological reaction to something threatening (like those big dreams of yours).

    When you come across a scary thought or situation, your brain will enter flight mode and your amygdala will literally stop your brain from producing new thoughts. Most artists know this as creative block, but it’s really just fear.

    So your big dreams aren’t the problem—your amygdala is. And you can turn your amygdala off by asking tiny questions.

    When I decided that I wanted to excel in my career, I didn’t start out with a question like “How can I help my company revolutionize the world?” No. That question would terrify even the most capable person.

    Instead, I took a step back and asked tiny questions. I thought about things like “What one benefit do I hope to deliver to our audience?” Or, “What can I do for ten minutes today that will bring me closer to completing this project?”

    Tiny questions like that aren’t intimidating at all.

    In fact, they’re quite doable.

    Eradicate Fear by Taking Small, Relentless Steps

    Once you start asking tiny questions, then you can start taking tiny actions.

    The key is to pick things that are small enough to keep your amygdala from getting in the way.

    And that’s why New Year’s Resolutions never work. For example, on January 1st we decide that we want to lose twenty pounds and completely give up chocolate; so we restrict our calories and give up our vice all at the same time.

    When you put yourself up against a mountain, the big steps you’re forced to take will trigger your flight response and ultimately lead to stress and burnout.

    If you want to achieve a big goal, you have to break it up into tiny steps.

    I used this tiny-step tactic when I started focusing on becoming healthier. I didn’t do anything radical—although that’s how it started out, and I had to fail over and over until I realized radical wouldn’t work.

    Instead, I took the slow and steady route, and it was brutally slow. It took me about two years to really gain momentum, but it trained me to reject instant gratification and just go slow.

    First, I started avoiding processed foods, and I focused on that until I mastered it. Then, I started focusing on only eating until I’m full, and I focused on that until I mastered it.

    Then I started going to the gym two days a week and I kept it up until I gained the momentum I needed to go four days a week.

    I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time, but I proved to myself (and hopefully to you) that small steps are much more successful at making big change.

    And I’ve become the healthiest version of myself because of it.

    Get Excited—It’s a Fearless Emotion

    But what about the people who don’t do tiny things? What about the people who do really big things and do them exceptionally well?

    These people have a very special talent: They know how to get really excited about their goals, and excitement is another way to keep your flight response off.

    So if you want to successfully achieve your dreams, you need to get excited about them! It will help you avoid fear and take projects on with enthusiasm.

    For example, my boss just gave me approval to write a book, which is something I’ve always wanted to do, and I was absolutely thrilled!

    Instead of letting myself become overwhelmed by the size of this project, I chose to get over-the-moon excited about it, which helps me stay focused and creative.

    Have you ever felt so fired up about an idea that you can’t wait to start working on it? If so, don’t ever let that feeling go. It will propel your dreams faster than anything.

    But if you can’t make the excitement last (and that’s okay—fear likes to creep in any chance it gets), then try using visualization.

    Train Your Brain with Visualization

    To get yourself to do something that scares you, you need to visualize yourself doing it first. And you need to visualize it over and over because repetition is how your brain masters new skills.

    And if you consistently visualize it every day (and all you really need is just thirty seconds daily), you’ll start to mentally master the action. Then all your body has to do is follow through.

    The key to effective visualization is to involve excruciating detail.

    You need to visualize what it’s going to look like just as much as what it’s going to sound, feel, and emote like. You also need to imagine how you’ll react to different possible scenarios, including the worst possible outcome.

    What will you do if you fail? What will the alternative actions be? How will you feel?

    When you mentally train yourself to deal with potential failure, you won’t give up when that bump in the road actually happens.

    Apply These Concepts to Big and Small Goals

    You can use visualization to accomplish anything and everything, even the super small stuff, which is where everyone should start.

    One of the best ways I’ve used visualization was to mentally train myself to say hello to strangers. It’s such a small thing, but that’s how I knew it could make a profound difference in my life.

    Saying hello to strangers was always something that I wanted to feel comfortable with, but I felt this unshakable resistance to it. And it all boiled down to being scared of rejection—something we people pleasers fear most.

    Ah yes, I was terrified of how I would feel if people didn’t say hello back. It’s so silly and almost petty, but that’s how my mind was programmed at the time.

    So I started visualizing myself doing this super simple task that I was afraid of. I would visualize myself saying hello to strangers in the supermarket while smiling and feeling whole (i.e. not seeking their approval).

    I would also visualize the worst possible outcome, which is that they ignore me (sooo scary, I know), and I would visualize how I felt when that happened: still smiling and still whole.

    Then I took this visualization into the real world.

    I started smiling and saying hello to strangers, and I felt genuinely happy while doing it. Sometimes it would turn into engaging conversation, other times it would turn into absolutely nothing. But no matter what the outcome was, I was always smiling.

    Using visualization this way helped me gain the momentum I needed to create meaningful relationships in my life. Today some of the most amazing people I know were once strangers that I simply said hello to.

    Sometimes we resist small changes and small habits because they seem too easy to make a profound difference in our lives. But I challenge you to reject that notion.

    Every mental, physical, or spiritual block you’re facing can be softened with the Kaizen mentality. Life will become a beautiful opportunity to create something meaningful, and you can do it with confidence and ease.

    What passion project have you been putting off?

    And what tiny action can you make today that will get you one step closer?

  • What Causes Panic Attacks and How to Stop Them for Good

    What Causes Panic Attacks and How to Stop Them for Good

    Calm Man

    “You empower what you fight. You withdraw power from what you release.” ~Alan Cohen

    Panic attacks can seem to come out of nowhere, without any warning. There is no obvious logical connection between a panic attack and what is happening around us at the time they arise.

    Is it really possible to be free of them, without medication? In my personal experience, the answer is yes. I used cognitive, emotional, and physical methods that eradicated my panic attacks.

    What Causes Panic Attacks?

    The short version of my story is that I experienced a less than peaceful upbringing and had a fair amount of anxiety and panic attacks as a result.

    A trusted therapist explained to me that panic attacks develop out of a psyche that is overloaded with repressed feelings. Panic attacks are like the psyche’s release valve.

    My earliest memories were comprised of the adults in my life walking out the door, seemingly for good. Sometimes they threatened to leave unless I promised to behave. As a toddler, I believed they were absolutely leaving and never coming back. There were many such incidents, leaving me with a lack of security or trust in my environment.

    In addition, there was no room for my emotions in my highly charged toxic environment. Even quiet times held no respite because I knew they were only the eye of a storm that would soon roar to life again.

    As a result, I automatically developed a stance much like a soldier in battle. When in a storm or bracing for the next one, I remained locked in survival mode, shutting down the expression of authentic emotions.

    As my high school days were coming to an end, I finally managed to move away from my family and find a place of my own. It was small, I had no money, and I was working all the time, but I had finally found a drama-free environment where I could learn to let my guard down.

    Retrain Your Brain

    Even after a long battle is over, many of us continue operating as if we are still in it.

    We remain in survival mode, automatically repressing emotions without even realizing it. So, panic attacks can continue after the stress that caused them in the first place is long gone.

    It isn’t the original stressful event that caused the attacks anyway—it was the lack of processing the fearful feelings surrounding the stressful event.

    You can actually retrain your brain to realize it is safe in the present moment, and that the past trauma is vastly skewing your perception, which is why you are panicking.

    A really effective exercise is to write down all the fears that are voiced during a panic attack. Then, write down as many reasonable responses as possible that refute those fears.

    This exercise actually trains your brain to form new neural pathways based in reality rather than in the skewed unprocessed feelings and beliefs that come from trauma. A terrific detailed guide for these cognitive exercises is in the book Feeling Good, by Dr. David Burns.

    As a teenager I worked with a trusted therapist on this. It takes time, but it really does change your perception of things. Each time a reality check proved my fearful thoughts false, I felt stronger and more positive in my interpretation of any situation.

    Feel It To Heal It

    If you’ve had panic attacks for a while, you’re probably sick of them. You may even tell that panicked voice of yours to just shut up and quit bothering me! However, if unprocessed feelings are what caused the panic attacks in the first place, then expressing and processing them is what will eventually cause them to disappear.

    Once I realized that my panic attacks were rooted in consistent abandonment by the adults around me, I could allow that very wise and mature part of myself to listen closely and compassionately to the scared toddler inside, who got spooked anytime something resembling abandonment would arise in my life.

    Instead of telling that panicked voice to be quiet, I learned to ask, “What are you afraid of? What do you need? How can I help?” Listening to that scared part of your younger self without judgment finally gives her a voice—no matter how crazy, stupid, or immature that voice may seem.

    Only then can the adult part of ourselves provide the comfort to that toddler that should have been provided, many years ago. We could double check to make sure no one is leaving us or being taken from us—or that if they are, knowing that we are going to be just fine.

    Act as you would want a parent to act when their children come to them, insisting there is a monster under their bed. It is comforting when parents indulge their children in checking that there are no monsters there rather than insisting that their children be quiet and go back to sleep.

    You can be the comforting adult now that you really needed back then.

    It is also helpful to remind the scared younger version of ourselves of all of the support and resources we now have as adults.

    Adults can get jobs, earn money, drive cars, decide where to live, educate ourselves, form relationships, and break off relationships. These are all tools adults have to provide themselves with the safety and security they need, so, no matter what is happening in the present, we will never feel as helpless as we felt as a child.

    Giving my inner toddler a voice finally allowed her to grieve the loss of a safe and stable environment—something I never had space to do before.

    Every now and then I would make a point to sit down, pop in a sad movie, and have a good cry for the sole purpose of listening to and comforting the toddler who needed to grieve the absence of a secure place in which to grow up.

    Employing these methods on a regular basis gives the scared, younger version of yourself the opportunity to express fears and needs regularly. Responding to that child in a compassionate way ensures that he or she will not have to scream to be heard in the form of a panic attack.

    Reprogram Your Body

    I had always assumed that one had to have calm thoughts and emotions in order to feel calm physically. It turns out that calming the body is a path to calming thoughts and emotions. As someone who is generally stuck in my head, this was a very foreign concept to me, but one I was willing to explore.

    I started doing bodywork with a therapist, getting a massage occasionally, and taking yoga. The point of the bodywork was to reverse my body’s bracing reaction to stress. Intellectually, I could understand that concept, but once I put it into practice, over time, I fully realized this concept.

    Being in a physically relaxed state connects every part of us to what is real rather than what we fear. The more often we can bring ourselves back to a physical place of relaxation, the more connected we are to the peaceful perspective instead of the skewed fearful perspective that fosters panic attacks.

    Keep At It

    Eradicating panic attacks does not happen overnight. Not even close. I found it impossible to picture a panic-free life when I was in the midst of my process, but it did happen after about two years of all of these efforts.

    It’s important to be compassionate with yourself and the process for taking so long. It’s also important to engage in extreme self-care during all of it so you don’t get exhausted.

    Remember that as strong as your fearful thoughts may seem, they are not your intuition. They are the reaction of your psyche to feelings that have been silenced. As painful as this process is, it is nevertheless an opportunity for healing a wound that has been buried for too long.

    Give yourself and your body all the tools possible, cognitive, emotional, and physical, to support your healing.

    Have you overcome panic attacks without medication, and if so, what methods did you use?

    Calm man image via Shutterstock

  • Why We Need to Stop Hiding and Let People See Who We Are

    Why We Need to Stop Hiding and Let People See Who We Are

    Woman Hiding Face

    “To help yourself, you must be yourself.” ~Dave Pelzer

    I spent a lot of my life being someone else. Playing the part of someone I didn’t fully recognize.

    Looking back, there were lots of reasons why I avoided being me, my mum’s suicide being one of them.

    Her death shaped me, like a rock in a tumbler, and my life, as I knew it, bore no resemblance to the one I once knew.

    I was ashamed of being the girl whose mum left her in such a violent way. What would people think? Maybe that she didn’t love me enough to stay? That I didn’t do enough to help her? That I wasn’t enough of a daughter to her?

    I started to believe that maybe I just wasn’t enough, period. That I was a bad person somehow. Because if you’re a bad person, people don’t want to be near you. They just up and leave. And that’s what she did.

    When you don’t feel enough, there’s anywhere and everywhere you’d rather be than right there, with yourself.

    I became a master at escaping myself and putting on an act in order to feel accepted. Accepted by people I believed would think things about me that I didn’t want them to think. I was too scared to let people see the real me because I believed the real me was so obviously fundamentally flawed.

    My escape artist act was compounded aged twenty-one, when I realized that I was gay.

    I wanted to hide. I didn’t want people to know. I felt different from other people, the people I already felt different from because their mums were still alive and kicking, and most definitely hadn’t killed themselves.

    And so I pretended, again.

    It’s hard, pretending to not be gay.

    People ask questions and get curious. About why you don’t have a boyfriend. Or why you spend so much time with your friend, “You sure do see each other a lot. You’re practically joined at the hip, aren’t you?”

    I spent a lot of time deflecting questions. My answers, which were always lies, became a shield that I hid behind.

    And as my lies got bigger, I became smaller, crouching behind the shield until I couldn’t see over or around it anymore.

    I had completely lost sight of who I was.

    And losing sight of me was the emptiest, most isolating feeling I have ever experienced. It felt like I was living my life behind a glass screen, like I wasn’t quite there, unable to take anything in.

    I was massively unsure of what I liked or didn’t like, and was scared to say what I thought. I mean, who was I to say? What did I know anyway? My thoughts and opinions felt lukewarm and grey. Not enough to add heat or a splash of color to a conversation.

    I didn’t dare try new things. I stuck to the same routine. I avoided anything that challenged me, for being challenged would mean crawling out from behind the shield, and I would be too exposed—and this might mean that people would see the me I didn’t want them to see.

    And we all do it, don’t we? In some part of your life right now is an area you’re avoiding. A place tucked away, deep down—a part of you that you don’t want other people to know about or see.

    So you don’t talk about it, you draw attention away. By being the life and soul of the party, even though you’re not really laughing on the inside.

    Or in your shiny, flash car that you drive faster than you should, because it’s the only way you ever feel truly alive.

    Or in your relationships with others—where you spend so much time caring for them so you don’t have to care for yourself, and yet you feel the quiet resentment creeping up when they don’t empty the dishwasher or thank you for the dinner you made.

    We avoid being exposed for who we really are while, at the same time, not knowing who we really are.

    And yet the reason we so often don’t know who we are is because we’re not being who we are.

    Over ten years later, I know this. And I see now how, bit-by-bit, and without realizing it at the time, I slowly came out from behind the shield that had protected me for so long.

    The shield that had protected me from me.

    “Figure out what you want from your life,” A friend advised. “Just get to know yourself.”

    “How the hell do I do that, though?” I asked.

    “Just do things. Anything!”

    And so I did. There were no huge, adventurous leaps, nothing particular to write home about. I just allowed my curiosity, even if it was just a smidgen of curiosity, to lead me.

    First up, I started to do things I’d never done before, like going to the cinema alone, or for lunch, with just a book for company. I read, vicariously, and mostly in the bath, mountains of self-development books.

    I wanted to understand myself better; to know why I did the things that I did and thought the things that I thought.

    In later months, I joined a barbershop harmony chorus (it didn’t last very long) and signed up for a five-kilometer race and started a blog which eventually became a website—a place where I could write openly about life, and being human.

    And slowly, very slowly, my life started to show signs of color again, and I didn’t use the shield so much. All of the things that I was doing, the “Just doing things!” were where I discovered who I was.

    We spend so much time looking outside of ourselves to find who we are, because it’s easier that way.

    When we don’t have to put ourselves on the line, when we don’t have to say how we really feel, we get to avoid the things we, as humans, don’t find very comfortable. Things like conflict, having a hard conversation, asking for what we need or offending someone.

    We get to avoid failing and messing up and risk. We get to avoid people not agreeing with us and our opinion, being different, being ‘weird.’ Being truly who we are.

    And yet, we cannot truly know who we are without being who we are.

    Only by being who we are can we experience connection—to life, to other people, and most importantly, to ourselves.

    Woman hiding face image via Shutterstock

  • What to Do When People Always Underestimate You

    What to Do When People Always Underestimate You

    Woman Silhouette

    “You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations.” ~Stevie Wonder

    Being blatantly underestimated is simply a part of my life.

    No matter what I’m doing, the ordinary will seem extraordinary, and the extraordinary will seem insurmountable to those who look at me for the first time. There is no way I am contributing the same amount to society as the rest of the world.

    These are not drawn conclusions on my part; I have been told these very things straight to my face. People perceive me this way because of the white cane in my hand, the badge, letting everyone know of my lack of vision.

    The most extreme instance of this happened while I was riding the bus, heading to an early college lecture. The man boarded the bus and sat down next to me. After he asked me how I was, and I answered as politeness dictates, I asked him the same.

    His response was, “I’ve been better. I just got out of prison.”

    The conversation went downhill from there. He told me that he had wanted to “throw in the towel,” “call it a day,” “end his life.”

    He then said to me, earnestly and sincerely, “but seeing you, and realizing how horrible your life is, there’s no way I could take my life. You’ve inspired me, showing me that someone has it much worse than I do.”

    As I rode that bus down to the university I attended, and he rode that bus to who knew where just after getting out of prison, a knot of bitterness tried to wriggle its way up my throat.

    I had been completely underestimated without a second thought, my life relegated to mere scraps of what it actually was because of one small quality.

    When people hear the word “prejudice,” they automatically think of the worst instance of judging another and immediately put themselves in the innocent category. There is no way that we underestimate or discriminate in the way that the word prejudice makes us think we do. The word, however, in the Marriam Webster dictionary is simply defined as:

    “An adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge.”

    It is extremely easy for someone to glean one small fact about another person and immediately begin to underestimate them without realizing it. Because of this, so many of us are being underestimated for circumstances out of our control. It could be that:

    • You are in an entry level position, inexperienced in your field as you continue to learn and grow
    • You are between jobs, and you’re constantly searching
    • You’re young or unmarried or in an uncertain place financially, and a baby is on the way
    • You have a physical or a mental disability
    • You find yourself in a career that the world thinks will yield no return.

    Even though you are, without a doubt, a uniquely valuable, talented person, that one small circumstance has the potential to bring you down in the eyes of the world around you.

    Though the general advice for people in a situation where others are commenting in a negative way is to not listen to the rest of the world, it can be difficult, when day after day, we are repeatedly told that we are less than we actually are.

    I know how it feels to be underestimated. I know how it feels when low expectations are heaped upon me without a second thought.

    I have, however, learned a few incredible lessons about being underestimated, and I’ve learned how to, for the most part, combat the pressures of being underappreciated.

    So, for those of you who are underestimated because of a circumstance that you can’t control, I hope these actionable steps can help you as they have helped me.

    Know Your Worth

    This is the easiest, most straightforward step you can take to keep negativity from dragging you down. It is, however, one of the hardest steps to actually put in to practice. When people tell us that we aren’t as valuable as we know we are, it can be easy to begin to believe them.

    You have to intentionally, consciously remember how valuable you really are. Here are a few ways to bring this abstract, but essential step in to the practical:

    Compliment yourself.

    Whenever you hear a negative comment aimed at you, combat it with a positive one.

    Compliment yourself when you look in the mirror. Compliment yourself before you walk out the door in the morning. Positively affirm yourself, bringing the qualities that make you unique and valuable to the front of your mind.

    Bring to mind the reasons for self-pride.

    No matter how insignificant they may seem, if you’ve done something in the past that you are proud of, or you are doing something now that propels you forward, these accomplishments can show you that the one small thing you are being underestimated for is actually not that important when you really think about it.

    Show pride in yourself externally.

    What I mean is, walk confidently, make smart clothing choices, do each of your actions to the best of your ability, and eventually your feelings of self-worth will soar.

    It’s also harder for people to underestimate you if you look as though you know what you’re doing. It might seem as though you’re trying to fake it until you make it, but trust me, you won’t have to fake it for long.

    Educate Those Doing the Understanding

    As someone who is totally blind, I have learned something very important: there are many people out there that are just ignorant and misinformed. They’ve never interacted with a blind person before, so they simply don’t know any better.

    Once I begin to talk to them, share my story, show them that I am just like anyone else, many of them begin to have much higher opinions of me and what I can do.

    Everyone has a story, and it can be therapeutic to open up and share it. Whether it’s a family member, a friend, or a stranger you’re talking to for the first time, you can have a chance to bring that person a perspective that might not have been known before.

    You don’t have to share your life with every person you meet, but misinformation and lack of understanding plays a huge part in the underappreciation of others.

    Surround Yourself with Like-Minded People Who Understand You

    These are the people you can vent your frustrations to, the people who will bring you through when others want to put you down.

    This step, for me, is key to keeping the positivity in my life. I already have to deal with people who may or may not see me in the way I see myself, so why would I want to go home and experience that, or invite that kind of negativity in to my life?

    Sometimes, the people who are around you the most—your family, your friends, your colleagues—are the ones who are doing the underestimating.

    I know this can be the hardest part for some of you, which is why it is all the more important to find a small inner circle that can support you where you are. Your inner circle should be the ones to cheer you on and stand with you, from a position of wanting to lift up and not pull down.

    If you find a group like this, and the underappreciation becomes too much, they will help you stay sane. I can promise you that. An open mind and a readiness to meet new people and forge relationships is really all you need to begin connecting with others on a deeper, more supportive level.

    Join a group of like-minded people, such as a meditation or yoga group, an intuition development class, a writer’s club, anywhere that will allow you to feel supported and connected. When you begin to meet with people, be prepared to share and open up, at least a little. These people are there to connect in the same way you are, and being open and authentic breeds trust.

    These types of relationships aren’t built in a day; it will take work and consistency to see results, but if you have a desire to connect, people will understand or feel that on a deeper level and will want to reciprocate. Connections like these can lead to the most fulfilling relationships, which are the kind that can help to combat low expectations and negativity.

    Prove Them Wrong

    The people who are doing the underestimating think they know something about you that, for some reason, you don’t know about yourself. You, however, have the home court advantage; you know more about yourself than anyone else ever can or will.

    • You know how valuable you truly are.
    • You know from what place most of these people are speaking.
    • You know that you can communicate with someone who will lift you up.

    And, at the end of the day, you are the one with the plan for your life. You are the one who knows how successful you are and can continue to be.

    So, you are the only one who can put one foot in front of the other and just keep on moving, even when others think they know the exact reason why you should stop. You are the only one who can prove them wrong.

    In the end, you are the one in control. No matter what anyone thinks or says, you choose your life and your path.

    If you know your own value and keep moving forward, if you understand the mindset of the people around you and hold on to those closest to you who love you, you will begin to see a transformation in the perceptions of those you encounter throughout your life and within yourself.

    Woman silhouette via Shutterstock

  • It’s Good to Pause in Our Pursuit of Happiness

    It’s Good to Pause in Our Pursuit of Happiness

    Just be happy

  • 5 Ways to Cope with Family Bullies

    5 Ways to Cope with Family Bullies

    “When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~Viktor Frankl

    Bullies are everywhere. One of the most insidious and destructive forms of bullying is family bullying, because it’s often done in the name of love.

    As someone who was bullied by family members for more years than I care to count, I spent a lot of time learning that most of the bullying going on was not about me or my failings—it was more about what other people needed to unload.

    Family bullies often pretend to (or believe they can) help by offering criticism. But a majority of the criticism is usually designed to make the bully feel better rather than to help the victim.

    In my family, bullying was the way my parents got rid of their feelings. After years of paying close attention to what was going on under the surface, I finally realized that the more emotions my parents were trying to deny in themselves, the more they put me down.

    I also learned that there are ways to minimize the effects of relating to dysfunctional family members, and I’d like to share them with you.

    1. Plan your responses ahead of time.

    If you know what kinds of comments push your buttons, prepare responses ahead of time that allow you to hold on to your self-esteem.

    For instance, if someone always comments on your parenting style, you can say, “I parent my kids according to my own values. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but that’s what I will continue to do.”

    Use “I” messages rather than “you” messages, which means saying “I think” or “I feel” rather than “You always” or “You shouldn’t.” “I” messages keep the focus on what you’re trying to communicate, and are less likely to instigate an argument.

    Practice your responses several times when you’re alone so they become automatic. When you’re in the midst of a heated situation, sometimes it’s hard to come up with a response that’s not habitual, so if you practice beforehand, standing up for yourself will begin to become a positive habit.

    2. Stand up to the bully without hostility.

    One tactic that often works to defuse criticism is to take a strong stance, look the person right in the eye, pause for a moment, and then say, “Excuse me?”

    With this phrase, you’re letting the person know that you’re aware they’re putting you down or dumping on you, and you’re not going to take it. But the beauty of this phrase is that it’s not hostile; you’re not adding fuel to the fire or throwing your anger back at the other person.

    You do need to take a strong stance, however, maintain eye contact, and say the words very clearly and distinctly. Sometimes this statement will stop the criticizer in his tracks as he steps back in his mind and hears what he actually said.

    3. Remove yourself from the situation.

    If you find yourself getting sucked into what the person says, take a break and go somewhere private. I used to go in the bathroom and scream silently, shake my hands, and shake my head. It helped to let the tension out of my body. Remind yourself that you don’t have to get caught up in the drama.

    It can take some practice over time to remember to take a break, but when you step out of the situation over and over, you’re reminding yourself of your separateness and your awareness of the dysfunction, and validating your desire to stay out of the traps and become mentally healthier.

    If you feel a need to leave the situation altogether, you do have the power to do that. People may get upset or yell or threaten you, but you’re not responsible for their feelings—you’re not responsible for calming them down, for solving their problems, or for ignoring your own needs in order to make them happy.

    They’ll try to get you under their control again, but the more you pay attention to your own needs and act on them, the more respect you’ll develop for yourself.

    4. Set boundaries.

    Setting boundaries ahead of time can help you feel more in control of a situation. Tell everyone ahead of time that you can only stay for two hours at a family party, or that instead of cooking the holiday ham for the tenth year in a row, this time you’ll bring a salad.

    You’ll need to be prepared for a backlash of “No! You can’t change! We liked you better when you let us control you!” But each time you stick to your guns, you’ll be growing stronger. Pay attention to your own needs and desires—they’re absolutely just as important as anyone else’s.

    5. When you leave, leave it all behind you.

    When you’ve just left a difficult situation, instead of rolling it around and around in your mind, set yourself a mental task of figuring out how to make it easier for yourself next time.

    What would need to change? How could you respond in a way that helps you feel more centered and grounded? What kinds of boundaries could you set up before the next time you see them?

    Ruminating over who said what and how awful it all felt for days afterward is a negative habit that reinforces old emotional patterns. Instead, remind yourself that the situation is over, and allow it to turn into a fading memory rather than constantly pulling it back into the front of your mind to relive over and over again.

    People who are regularly criticized by others tend to be very critical of themselves, as well. Have compassion for yourself, and treat yourself with kindness. Most of us are actually doing a better job at everything than we think we are—no matter what anyone else believes or says.

  • Stop Trying to Fix Yourself and Start Enjoying Your Life

    Stop Trying to Fix Yourself and Start Enjoying Your Life

    Enjoy

    “You think that the goal is to be over there, and we say the goal is the journey over there; the goal is the fun you have along the way on your way to over there.” ~Abraham

    I have a clear memory of my mother looking at my bookshelves several years ago and commenting, “You’re always reading all these self-help books, and where has it gotten you?”

    I responded with a quip about how I’ll always be working to align my personality with my soul, to which she scoffed and said, “When will you grow up and realize you have a great life, a great job, and great friends—and just enjoy it?!”

    Of course, all I heard was “When are you going to grow up?” Her point, however, was a wise one: Just enjoy your life. She made a similar comment a couple of years later.

    I had just been told the place I was living was going to be turned into an art studio for my landlady. Thankfully, she gave me two months notice to find a new place. But man, I loved my cinder block house on the river and was crushed by the news.

    I called my mom in tears. I complained about how I’d never find someplace else so wonderful and how unhappy things were with my job. I talked about wanting to just sell everything I owned and take a walkabout.

    Mom didn’t say a lot at the time. However, when I got up the next morning I had a long email from her. My favorite paragraph is this one:

    Shannon, you should stop buying all that self-help crap and going off to retreats to find yourself. You are not perfect, never will be, and no one in the world is either. You make mistakes; we all do. Just live with it. You are a warm, intelligent woman—just live the best honest life you can.

    All of my self-help books and years of spiritual study, and my mom nailed it in one simple paragraph. Granted, her delivery could use some work, but the essence of what she wrote was right on. Again.

    I will, of course, continue to read personal development books and go on personal retreats. However, I no longer do those things because I think something was wrong with me. Now, I do them because I love myself.

    However, I think the best message here is to just live the best honest life we can and let that be enough.

    For the majority of my life, I’ve spent massive amounts of time beating up on myself. My inner critic is a loud and obnoxious voice that has seemed unstoppable. My biggest judgment of myself has been how I tend to “slumber” and “awaken” in my consciousness.

    For example, when I was on a personal retreat in the mountains this summer, I was really feeling inspired, in the flow, and motivated to become a successful writer and speaker. I was excited about this new life I am creating and about feeling fully conscious again. I was sure I was going to maintain my awareness.

    Then I came down off the mountain. Once back to the routine of my everyday life, I easily slipped back into distraction. I stopped meditating every day. I played computer games instead of writing. I vegged out to my favorite show on Netflix.

    Once again, my inner critic rose up and I started to get really down on myself. It’s ironic that what inspired me to get out of my funk was my own voice recording from when I had been on retreat. Listening to it, I was reminded that slumbering and awakening are just a part of life.

    I heard myself say, “When we do stumble, when we do fall, when we are capsized, we learn to have compassion and simply laugh at our humanness.”

    I’ve realized it’s so easy for me to get caught up in this idea that I need to be perfect. If I only drink enough green smoothies, go to yoga class, and chant an hour each day, then I can be happy. However, the minute I skip some part of this self-imposed regimen, I beat myself up and feel like a total failure.

    Life is about slumbering and awakening. It’s about falling off the wagon, the exercise routine, the diet, the spiritual practice. Anyone who appears to always be perfectly aligned is most likely not being fully authentic. We are human, and this is what being human means.

    My dear mother, at age eighty-three, has got this message without having read or studied any of the numerous discourses on this subject. She just enjoys her life.

    At the end of the day, what is most important is how we answer the question: Were we kind to one another? And, equally important, were we kind to ourselves?

    People jumping image via Shutterstock

  • 6 Healthy Ways to Shed Layers of Emotional Pain

    6 Healthy Ways to Shed Layers of Emotional Pain

    Shedding Layers

    “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin

    Do you remember a time when you wanted to crawl under the bed and stay forever?

    Perhaps you’d been dealing with chronic pain and anxiety, had recently experienced divorce or the loss of a loved one, maybe even lost a job or two. I had experienced all of these things in just a few short years, and, judging by the loud knocking as I hid, was about to have my car repossessed, too.

    I called my dad and told him I was a bit depressed. “Don’t be,” he counseled.

    “Don’t be?” I repeated. “Oh, okay, I’m fine then.”

    “Yep, like that.”

    This way of dealing with the painful feelings, of ignoring and burying them as we force ourselves ever onward, is often expected of us.

    It’s natural—scary things happen to us in life. We fall down unexpectedly, we fight, we fail, we are betrayed, abandoned, overwhelmed by loss. The subconscious starts enfolding us in protective layers when we need them so that we can move forward with life.

    But what happens when we don’t let go once the need has passed?

    Believe it or not, emotions, especially those that needed to be dealt with long ago, can become toxic little bombs tucked secretly inside our muscles, our organs, running through our blood. According to Caroline Myss, “Our biography becomes our biology.”

    These emotional layers can build up as extra weight, angry outbursts that seem to come from nowhere, aches and pains, unhealthy habits, an itchy feeling that something isn’t right, depression, anxiety, perhaps even disease.

    At first, my layers were mostly hidden from the world. The evidence of a tumultuous childhood showed up only when I was pushed too far by something little but snapped with the resentment of a hundred years, the times when I backed down easily instead of standing my ground, the nights when I had that extra drink to ease social anxiety. Let’s call this the invisible, sneaky layer of plastic wrap.

    Then came the thicker materials: burlap, leather, drywall, the hair shirt, the ironclad ball and chain around the ankle. Leather made me look tougher as I moved to Texas to hide from my parents’ divorce. But moving did not help and neither did the armor.

    My steps through life grew heavier, depressed. My body grew heavier, too. I jokingly called it my “layer of pizza” resulting from a car accident at age twenty-three: chronic back pain and herniated discs with no relief in sight. The chocolate was a great listener; the cheesy bread totally got it.

    When my dad passed away suddenly, just hours after we’d been laughing on the phone together, my anxiety was so high, my wall built up so tall, that I could not leave the house without medication.

    I coped with Netflix marathons, hiding from the world and hoping that life would just gently go away, leave me alone, let me pretend to be a character in someone else’s story.

    To the world, I looked unscathed, but the layer of pain remained ever-present. If I had to add another layer, I felt I would never move again.

    I heard an urgent whisper, “Let go, let go, let go…”

    Desperate, I decided to try “that crazy yoga stuff.” And that’s when I learned how to acknowledge the layers, let the tears melt them away, and send them on their happy way to help those who needed them more.

    A layer or two of “pizza,” the medication, the unexplained and unidentifiable sadness, started disappearing. Lighter, I discovered a little more self, a gleam of joy, a dream or two remembered.

    I will not lie to you—the rainbows and unicorns come after the hard work. First, you must face the emotion that was so terrible, you instead let the layer of scales and fangs grow in. But when that unicorn comes galloping down the rainbow to gently peel the scales away forever, well, that’s worth it, my friend.

    There is no telling how many times we need to go through this process. Once we’ve sorted through and let go of all the “stuff,” life is still happening, constantly changing no matter how tightly we are gripping. We must always re-evaluate: What am I clinging to? What layers are holding me back?

    Practices to Shed Layers of Old Feelings

    1. Journal.

    What emotions or habits might be holding you back? Without the pressure of forcing yourself to give anything up immediately, simply allow yourself to imagine what your life could look like if you did let go of negativity. How does your ideal self look and feel while realizing your wildest goals?

    For me, journaling was really tough at first. Sometimes I would just make lists to get ideas flowing. Some of my entries started, “Today sucked. I feel bad.” Oooh, award winning. But as the words flowed, the emotions would sneak out, begging to be named: “but yesterday, my boss said…and it reminded me of dad and I miss him…” OH. There it is.

    2. Meditate.

    When I first meditated, I set a three-minute timer at my desk at work during my lunch break. Now it has grown into my favorite twenty minutes of the day. The small action of stopping to check in with yourself, even for a moment or two, can be a very powerful key into learning more and letting go.

    3. Find a healing practice for yourself.

    Whether it’s a local yoga class, massages, regular exercise like running, a Reiki treatment, a day at the spa, or even a virtual course on chakras, intuition, or any type of self-healing, setting aside time for self-care melts the layers by adding a little more love and self-respect, leaving less room for the doubt and worry. Combine a few of those in the same week and see how you feel!

    My favorite go-to practice is taking a bath with essential oils, candles, and soothing music when I need to re-charge. If I’m short on time, a simple ten-minute foot soak in the tub, with salts and some lavender, works just as well.

    4. Take a break from the media.

    I know, it’s unthinkable. What if we miss everything? As if the expectations of others weighed with our own grief weren’t enough to navigate, now social media adds a new layer of hurt, comparison, and confusion. Just when you think you’re over it, you can be “blocked” or stalked or publicly assailed. It’s even more in our face, so to speak.

    When I had a hurtful disagreement with a friend, I decided to take a month away from Facebook to heal. It really helped. I also step away when I notice I’m starting to compare my life with the glossy “this is who I want you to see me as” photos of others. And guess what? I still have friends when I return every time, in addition to a fresh perspective and better feelings about myself.

    Real friends will still be there. It can even be as simple as a time limit. You can do it.

    5. Read uplifting books.

    You can choose self-study through gorgeous spiritual books, like Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, or Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman.

    Choose books that lift your spirit and open your mind, especially those that instruct on letting go and being present. This was a game-changer for me; I could feel layers just floating away from the soothing advice of those who’ve been there, too.

    6. Laugh.

    When you laugh until you cry, no doubt a layer is disappearing. Releasing emotions doesn’t always have to be hard work. Play can offer the relief we need, too. So can dancing in your living room to Enrique Iglesias or to your guilty pleasure, flail like no one’s watching jam.

    —

    So why bother with peeling back the layers?

    Our layers have layers, born of layers that were layered over layers. This work is like unwrapping a mummy, and as you go deeper, you learn things you never could have imagined. You may even see some scary stuff you weren’t expecting. Better out than in, though, right?

    And guess what’s hiding underneath? The truest, most lovely version of yourself waiting to blossom and shine.

    Shedding layers image via Shutterstock

  • Why Stress and Pressure Can Actually Be Good for Us

    Why Stress and Pressure Can Actually Be Good for Us

    Stressed

    “A diamond doesn’t start out polished and shining. It once was nothing special, but with enough pressure and time, becomes spectacular.” ~Solange Nicole

    It’s one of the last days of summer, and I wake up to my mother screaming.

    I’m ten, and I pull off the covers and sneak to my door. Opening it slowly, I peek out and look down the stairs.

    Men have stormed into our house. Ignoring my mom, they head into the living room, pick up the sofa, and throw it out on the lawn. They do the same with the dinner table and the rest of our furniture. But they’re not thieves; they’re not here to rob us.

    They’re here to evict us.

    There was no notice mailed to inform us that they’d be coming, no note plastered on the door.

    Our first notice was the ding dong of the evictors ringing the doorbell.

    As a kid, I had no idea what to do. The amount of stress was overwhelming. I didn’t cry. I just sat down on the stairs, held my knees to my chest, and watched, numb.

    All our rent had been paid on time, but the landlord pocketed the cash instead of paying the mortgage. We spent the next six months homeless, living in a motel.

    It was one of the best things to ever happen to me.

    It took me twenty years to realize it, and when I did, I grieved. I had forgotten about it for a long time, but when I remembered the details and how the eviction had shaped me, the tears came.

    When you’re evicted like that as a kid, it changes you in a funny way. It creates a lot of stress, and a lot of fear.

    For a long time I lived in fear that people might come in at any moment and take everything from me… but I didn’t know it. I just stopped trying at a lot of things.

    Teachers at school would tell my mom I needed to “apply myself.” I didn’t work toward much; why bother when all your progress might be snatched up the next day?

    Fear can hold us back without us realizing it. We might not call it fear, but maybe we say we’re “tense,” “feeling nervous,” or “stressed.” They’re often the same thing. It’s just a shadow hanging behind us, following us through life.

    But what if it doesn’t have to?

    When we were evicted, I didn’t know what to do and sat on the stairs. I froze.

    But what about my mom? The source of the stress was the same for both of us, so did it make her sit down and give up?

    After the initial shock, my mother went to work. She was a single mom taking care of her brain-injured brother and me. She had no time for a breakdown.

    She picked up the phone and called friends and relatives for help. Out on the lawn she boxed up what she could and organized what we needed to get through the next few months in our motel room. Movers came and took the rest into storage.

    The stress and fear my mother felt didn’t paralyze her. It motivated her to action.

    The Power of Stress

    For a long, long time after, I avoided stress as much as I could. I avoided it through school, and in college always took light class loads so I would never feel any pressure.

    Like those movers had done to us, I evicted my stress.

    But my life, empty of stress, was also empty of meaning. The two go hand in hand. If you want to life a meaningful life, stress is going to come with it.

    We only feel stress toward the things we care about. As Dr. Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist at Stanford, says, “Stress only arises when something we care about is at stake.”

    In college, living a stress-free life, I started to feel worthless. For six months, I hated myself.

    Whenever I had class, I rode a train to and from campus. The train tempted me. All I had to do was step in front of it. Easy.

    I held myself back, and I don’t really know why. The self-destructive feelings didn’t go away until I started putting myself under pressure. For me, it was writing. At the time I wanted to be a novelist, but wasn’t writing.

    Starting to write put pressure on me. That gave me stress I needed. The depression lifted, and I started feeling happy again.

    Give Your Stress a Home

    Stress and fear are often the same response, and we can’t truly get rid of them (as much as we might like to). Being human, they’re always going to be there.

    Being evicted was one of the best things to happen to me, even if I didn’t realize it for years.

    On one level, living in a motel room for six months brought us closer as a family.

    But on the other, it taught me how to work with my stress and fear (even if it took twenty years to learn it). It taught me to give my stress and fear a home.

    We can run from our stress and fear all we want. It’ll chase after us, never letting us escape.

    We don’t break free by getting away. We break free by turning around and seeing the stress and fear for what they really are.

    They’re not there to hold you back; they’re there to point the way you have to grow.

    I started looking at my stress and fear differently. Whenever I felt anxiety, stressed, or afraid, instead of seeing those feelings as warning signs to run away, I saw them as signs pointing me in the direction I needed to go to grow as a person.

    Become like Diamond

    Diamonds are one of the hardest materials we know of. They don’t get that way by sitting out in the sun.

    Diamonds are formed under intense heat and thousands of pounds of pressure.

    Your diamond self is waiting for you. Your stress, your fears, they don’t stand between you and what you want. As uncomfortable as they may feel, they’re the lanterns lighting your path.

    You don’t have to leap down that road; you don’t even have to take a running start. You just have to start walking that path, one small step at a time.

    Stressed woman image via Shutterstock

  • What’s Really Going on When Someone Seems “Too Sensitive”

    What’s Really Going on When Someone Seems “Too Sensitive”

    Crying Eyes

    “For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ~Cynthia Occelli

    The whole time I was growing up, I was told, incessantly, that I was “too sensitive.” These words, when I first heard them, came from the mouth of the person I vowed I would never become.

    And yet, as I grew up, these words didn’t stay within the darkness of my childhood home. They began to roll out of the mouths of kids on the playground, boyfriends, classmates, friends.

    “Wow, you’re really touchy.”

    “You’re so emotional.”

    “You’re turning really red. Are you, like, really offended right now? You should take a chill pill.”

    “You can’t take a joke.”

    Often, my reaction was to a joke—an insulting one. I’ve never liked insult humor, and yet it’s followed me throughout my life. It was (and still is) there in my Eastern European origins, and it was there every step of the way when I came to Canada as an immigrant.

    They were right. I just couldn’t take a joke.

    Each time this would happen, I would own it. Yes, I was too sensitive. It was my fault. I had to try to hide it better. I came up with all these tactics to hide my volatile emotions, but they failed.

    Even if I didn’t cry, I’d turn red. Even if I didn’t turn red, my lips would quiver and my body would tense up. Someone would never fail to point it out.

    “Wow, you get really red—like a tomato!”

    “Hey, lighten up. You take things so seriously.”

    I left the toxic environment of my childhood when I was seventeen years old, having counted down the days until I could be free. An old journal of mine from around then says, “I’m so glad I’m over the past.” I thought changing locations was the end of the story.

    I had focused so much on getting free that, when I got to that freedom, I didn’t know what to do. Slowly, I developed serious mental health issues that grew from not healing. I became more than just sensitive. I became what my ex called “crazy.”

    After my first relationship—which quickly turned into mutual emotional abuse—dissolved, something broke inside of me. I became cold, distant, intolerant. I began to make comments about other people being too sensitive when they reacted, because I no longer did.

    And you know something? It felt good. It felt so good to, for once, not be the one that felt ashamed of my emotions. I felt powerful. I felt like everything would be okay.

    I became everything I had fought so long and so hard against: loveless, distant, cynical. I became the bully I once feared. I began my journey to become the abuser I vowed to leave in my childhood memories.

    Thankfully, I had a breakdown. I say thankfully, because those weeks of unbearable pain were nothing compared to a lifetime I could have lived as yet another abuser recreating her past.

    As I allowed myself to feel again, I felt a flood of regret and guilt for the people I’d hurt. I felt terrible about shaming those emotions in others that I’d had shamed in me. I used this feeling to forgive the people who had hurt me, realizing that their actions were by-products of abuse in their pasts as well.

    I had escaped hurting myself and hurting others by healing the pain of the past, which was only possible by feeling the pain of the past. And I realize now that this was what I was trying to do all those times I would overreact—heal. I was trying to heal.

    When we get ignored or put down, it hurts. It leaves a wound. And then, when we’re in a safer situation, that wound tries to heal.

    Each time I reacted emotionally to a situation that didn’t seem appropriate, my wound was trying to heal.

    Each time I would react to a joke with pain, my wounds were trying to heal.

    Each time I’d get this rush of anger or anxiety or self-hatred, triggered by some little thing someone did that reminded me of the abuse of the past, my wounds were trying to heal.

    But what did the world say?

    When I needed someone to hold me while I cried about being insulted and pushed down after being triggered by something little and silly, people would say, “You’re too sensitive.”

    When I needed someone, anyone, to just look at what was happening in my life and listen to me, having no communication skills and able only to start drama, people would say, “You’re doing it for attention.”

    I came so close to killing myself before I had a breakdown. If I had, wouldn’t they have said, “We didn’t see it coming”?

    Abuse has been rampant in my family for generations. In my work, I see every day how rampant emotional abuse is in our society.

    Abuse makes people “sensitive.” I put this in quotation marks because there’s a difference between perceiving a person’s sensitivity as a characteristic and perceiving that person as having gaping wounds, which are sensitive because they’re healing.

    And our cultural tendency to push down the healing process in those who have been abused is the most silent killer of them all.

    As human beings, we need to connect, to love, to belong. We need to feel like we are accepted and respected for who we are. And how many of us had those needs shattered at a young age? If not by our parents, by a group of peers. If not by a group of peers, by a partner.

    As soon as we get hurt, we start to heal. This goes for paper cuts as much as it goes for emotions. We can allow that healing, or we can block it.

    Those who appear outwardly sensitive and touchy are actually doing something incredibly brave. They are choosing to stay with their emotions, which are pathways to healing, instead of shutting down and joining the abuse statistics.

    So next time you hear someone being called too sensitive, know this: there are only so many times a person’s healing process can be repressed before they can’t take it anymore. And the way a person breaks out is either through ending their life or ending their emotional life by becoming abusive themselves.

    This is happening everywhere, and we can all do our part to stop it.

    Jon Briere said, “If we could somehow end child abuse and neglect, the eight hundred pages of DSM […] would be shrunk to a pamphlet in two generations.”

    We can all do our part in this, and the way we can start is by understanding the connection between emotional release and healing, by allowing people to experience emotions in front of us without judging or backing down, and by allowing ourselves to experience those emotions, to heal, and to find people who will allow us to do so.

    Like this, we can build a better world together. But we can’t do it alone. We need you. We need all of us.

    Crying eyes image via Shutterstock

  • How to Develop Self-Love and Why This Will Strengthen Your Relationship

    How to Develop Self-Love and Why This Will Strengthen Your Relationship

    Happy Couple

    “An outstanding love doesn’t come from two half-fulfilled people coming together to make one whole, complete life. Outstanding love comes from two whole people coming together to share and enhance their already full and beautiful lives.” ~Pia Scade

    My partner and I were having a conversation about our relationship recently.

    We both told each other just how much we loved the relationship. We weren’t talking about how much we love each other, but about how much we enjoy this shared space between us, this thing we call our relationship.

    We enjoy giving to it and nurturing it. We enjoy receiving from it. It challenges us on a regular basis, but ultimately those challenges make us better people.

    We feel that the relationship enhances us as individuals and makes us happy. We don’t need it, we don’t depend on it, but we sure do want to keep it.

    It wasn’t always like this for me. With past girlfriends things always started out well, but over time my insecurities would take over.

    I would lose my sense of self and become absorbed into the relationship. I would come to depend on the partnership for satisfaction, happiness, validation, and self-worth. My other half was often equally struggling.

    The result was that the positive energy in the space between us got drained. The more needy we both became the more toxic it got.

    We clung on because we thought we needed each other but we became resentful and started to hate the relationship. Neither of us was doing anything to nurture our love. We hung on until it got so bad that somebody snapped, and then it ended.

    The difference between then and now is self-love. In the past I was insecure and needy, and I didn’t yet know who I was or what I wanted from life and from love. My partners had similar problems and inevitably my relationships would eventually turn sour.

    Now, after a lot of personal growth and self-actualization, with a partner who has also done the same, I can genuinely say that I love myself and I am glad to be me.

    Self-love means now that I also love my relationship. I don’t depend on it, as I did in the past, and it doesn’t take away my individuality. It enhances me.

    It seems like such a simple concept but it was a big epiphany when we both came to realize it in our recent conversation.

    We love ourselves, we love each other, but long after the rose tinted glasses have come off, we love this thing called “us.” As partners, teammates, friends, and lovers we think the space between us is awesome.

    Learning Self-love While In A Relationship

    It can be difficult to be in a relationship if you don’t have a great deal of self-love. Often the insecurities will lead to conflict, and sometimes the conflict will lead to a breakup.

    A common piece of advice is that you have to learn to love yourself before you even get into a relationship.

    But what if you are already with someone? Does it mean you have to part in order to do the work on yourself before finding love again? Do you have to meet some arbitrary self-love prerequisite before you qualify for a relationship?

    Of course it helps to be entering a relationship with a strong feeling of self-love. But I also think that if you are in a partnership where self-love is lacking, and the space between you is needy, irritating, and harmful, things can be turned around.

    Learning self-love is an ongoing process. It’s not a switch you can just flick on. Even couples who have a healthy amount of self-love could have more.

    How To Develop Self-Love If You Are In A Relationship

    1. Maintain a degree of space and independence.

    It’s unhealthy to allow the relationship to absorb your identity and to lose yourself as a person. Keep your own rituals, your own activities, and your own friends. Spend a healthy time apart doing your own thing to nurture your soul.

    2. Remember you are the master of your own happiness.

    Your partner can’t make you happy. Only you can do that. He or she can enhance the happiness that you nurture in yourself, but it is not their responsibility to make you happy. If you rely on them for happiness you will drain the space between you. Make sure you take the responsibility yourself.

    This isn’t an easy thing to do and is a habit that you need to develop over time. It starts with adopting a mindset that happiness is a choice, meaning you give yourself the power to cultivate happiness for yourself. It’s difficult and it’s hard work, but it’s liberating because you refuse to allow your happiness to be dictated by your circumstances or by other people.

    Choosing happiness means accepting the truism that the only person you can change is you. Instead of looking to change others, you work on yourself and make sure you meet your own needs.

    Another way to take responsibility for your own happiness is to choose to be present. If you wait for the perfect conditions before you allow yourself to be happy, then you will always be waiting.

    Instead of saying, “I’ll be happy when…” you choose happiness now. You quiet thoughts of the past or the future and decide to be happy in the moment.

    Doing the little things that make you happy helps with this. Embrace the small daily moments you have to nurture yourself, like sitting down with a cup of tea or taking ten minutes to meditate. This can help quiet your mind, allowing you be present and to find a moment of joy in your day.

    Working through your baggage from the past can also help you feel lighter and more present and makes it easier to choose happiness. Yet working through past pain is an ongoing process, and while it’s good to do it, it doesn’t have to hold you back from choosing happiness.

    It doesn’t have to be, “I’ll be happy once I overcome my baggage.” You can be happy right now.

    3. See in yourself what your partner sees in you.

    Insecure people struggle to see anything good in themselves and are often dismissive of the positive things their partner sees.

    Ask you partner what they see in you and what it is about you that they love. This is a great date night exercise for couples. Write a list of twenty things you love about each other and take turns reading them out.

    If you do this regularly you will slowly take it onboard and internalize it and start to believe it about yourself.

    For example, I used to be critical of myself for being too reserved and boring. But I’ve come to realize that my partner really appreciates my ability to keep an even keel when in rough emotional waters.

    My highs aren’t that high but my lows aren’t that low. Instead of seeing this as me being boring and something to be critical of, I now see it as a sign of strength and something valuable that I bring to the relationship.

    In a relationship you aren’t just learning about the other person, you are also learning about yourself.

    4. Don’t get disheartened when you see your flaws.

    On the other hand a relationship will also hold up a mirror to your flaws. Things you have learned to live with about yourself may irritate your partner.

    We all have our flaws. Some things can be ignored; others might be something you want to work on. Either way, don’t let it get you down or get in the way of self-love.

    Exposing flaws is a natural part of a relationship; it doesn’t mean you are a terrible person or that you are unlovable.

    5. Forgive yourself for your failings.

    Holding a grudge against yourself gets in the way of self-love. It’s inevitable in a relationship that there will be times you say or do things that you regret. Don’t beat yourself up about it.

    6. Remember love is an action, not a feeling.

    Wise minds have always maintained that love is something you choose to do, not an emotion that you feel. This is often said about loving another but the same is true about loving yourself.

    Even if you don’t feel like you love yourself, choose to act in a self-loving way. Make time to nurture yourself and fulfill your own needs.

    The best way to do this is to schedule “me time” everyday. This is a period where you put yourself first over any other commitments or other people. Do simple activities that you enjoy. For me it’s going to the gym, reading the news, and eating a quiet breakfast. Some like to meditate, do yoga, or read.

    It’s all about creating a little self-love ritual. One session might not make a big difference, but if you can make it a regular daily habit then the cumulative benefits will add up.

    I’ve been won over by the early riser brigade that the morning is the best time to schedule this, as there are no other distractions. Every day for the last year I have woken up an hour earlier than normal so that I have my daily self-love time. You may prefer to do it in the evening as a wind down before bed, but either way, make it a priority.

    —

    Remember that self-love is important for enjoying a happy, healthy, and respectful relationship. When you are secure, confident, and feeling good about yourself you feed positive energy into the space between you.

    If you are feel that you are struggling in your relationship, focus on yourself, work on self-love, and you will see things improve.

    Happy couple image via Shutterstock

  • Happiness Is Not Something Ready-Made

    Happiness Is Not Something Ready-Made

    Happiness Is Not Something Ready Made

    Source: Buddha Groove

  • Create an Extraordinary Life: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Daily

    Create an Extraordinary Life: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Daily

    Woman thinking

    “We have one precious life: do something extraordinary today, even if it’s tiny. A pebble starts the avalanche.” ~K.A. Laity

    Do you have a vision of a life you want to lead?

    Doing work that you enjoy, being happy, healthy, and having great relationships?

    You probably have your own idea of what an extraordinary life means. But how often do you feel that you are living that life?

    Life is bound within the confines of our schedules, our money, and our limited resources.

    There are many things that you want to do, or want to be, but most of the time you tend to go with the flow, putting things off for later. Either because you are too busy, or because you feel that you lack the means to do so.

    What if that’s not true?

    What if you are mistaken about the limitations you think you face? What if you can do much more—starting today?

    What if, by just asking yourself a few questions every day, you could become happier, healthier, and much more successful?

    For me, an extraordinary life is not about being in a permanent vacation in Vegas or having millions in the bank. My vision is not of any particular destination, but a journey. It’s a life where I am content with what I have yet strive for more. A balance of the present and the future.

    Last year was one of the best years of my life. And I could make it so because I was able to look past what I had assumed to be major limitations that were holding me back.

    A Dream on the Backburner

    Since I was ten years old, I wanted to visit Scotland.

    Filled with breathtaking natural beauty, fascinating legends, rich history, incredible medieval architecture, wonderful people, and divine food, Scotland is one of the most enchanting places on Earth.

    I had glimpses of it all my life through travel shows, books, and movies –Braveheart, The Water Horse, the legend of the Loch Ness monster, R.L. Stevenson’s stories, and more.

    For me, this was not just about a vacation. This was connected to the very core of my identity—to my sense of freedom and adventure; to my love for art, beauty, and a desire to live a life of meaning.

    The trouble was that I was running a startup business and I was always either too busy or had too little money to spend on personal matters.

    My wife and I had this grand vision of a luxury trip to Scotland, when we would have enough time and money. We really didn’t want to go on a regular trip because we wanted it to be ‘extraordinary.’

    One day all that changed. But not in the way I had expected.

    A Simple Bit of Wisdom

    I came across a bit of simple but powerful wisdom by bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith. He spoke about asking ourselves daily questions about things that really matter to us:

    Did I do my best to (be or do something) today?

    The question might seem simple, but it has a very powerful impact. It will make you examine your life and your perceived limitations. It will prompt you to take personal responsibility for your life.

    I became intrigued and began to ask myself one particular question that he recommended:

    Did I do my best to be happy today?’

    Asking this question made me more cognizant of taking responsibility for my own happiness. Initially, it prompted me to practice gratitude every day. But then came a big revelation.

    A Revelation

    Over a couple of weeks, I began to think more deeply about my life. I really began to wonder, what would make me more fulfilled right now? And the same answer kept repeating itself: I had to go to Scotland.

    And then, I thought, why not? Why am I putting off something that means so much to me?

    My wife and I were planning a trip for the next year, but many ‘next years’ had elapsed without us taking action.

    Over the next few days, we did some serious research and realized that it wouldn’t really be as expensive as we had thought. Besides, there are ways to save, like staying in AirBnB instead of a hotel.

    Soon after, we were standing in the medieval city of Edinburgh!

    Nothing can prepare you for the magic when you actually land in that mesmerizing city. Traveling through the Highlands, visiting castles, and taking a boat ride on the legendary Loch Ness was far more beautiful than I had ever expected.

    And it all began by asking a simple question every day. Honestly, if I hadn’t asked that daily question, we would have put off our trip again for ‘next year.’

    The Power of the Question

    A meaningful question has the power to prompt you to take a close look at your life and your actions. It directs you to take responsibility for your success and happiness. So what other questions can you ask that have the power to change your life?

    I will share four more daily questions that you can ask yourself about different areas of your life. Each of these questions has the power to transform your life. But first…

    A Word of Caution

    Don’t expect an earth shattering revelation when you ask any of these questions for the first time. You will only realize the profound power of these questions once you begin asking them for at least a few days. But over time, these questions can truly make your life extraordinary.

    Ready? Let’s begin.

    Here are four more daily questions for living an extraordinary life.

    Improving your Career

    Are you less than satisfied with your job?

    Most of us are, or have been. Few of us feel completely fulfilled at work.

    However, what’s also true is that few of us consider themselves to be responsible for their happiness at work.

    Ask yourself, “Did I do my best to enjoy my work today?”

    Asking this will prompt you to make a sincere effort to enjoy your work.

    The moment you take this responsibility, it will become easier for you to connect with people, resolve conflicts, take more initiative, and lend a helping hand to a colleague.

    Over time, taking personal responsibility will drive better results, reduce your stress, and bring you more recognition and success.

    Improving Health and Fitness

    Do you tend to ignore your health because you are too busy? Do you make fitness resolutions without ever sticking to them?

    Ask, “Did I do my best to stay healthy?”

    This question will provide you with the energy to persevere.

    Eating better, going for a run every day, or even changing simple habits like taking the stairs instead of the lift takes time and effort to build.

    It is important to do your health habit a little every day till it becomes second nature.

    By asking this daily question you will remind yourself to take the small steps toward everyday health—eat a fruit, skip the rope, or sit down to meditate for a few minutes

    It will also give you the assurance that you can succeed despite your lack of time or inconsistency in the past.

    You realize that all you need is some extra effort and perseverance. Let the question be your inspiration every day.

    Improving Relationships

    Do you often find yourself involved in a disagreement or a conflict?

    Conflicts are one of the biggest sources of stress. How much easier would your life be if you had a way to resolve conflicts quickly, or even better, prevent them from occurring in the first place?

    Ask, “Did I do my best to understand people?”

    Most conflicts happen because people fail to understand each other. Because we fail to see the other person’s viewpoint, or appreciate their interests. Before you can truly make the other person understand you, you must understand him or her. Why not take the first step yourself?

    Designing your Life’s Purpose

    Do you ever feel a lack of clear purpose? Or that there is a special purpose to your life, but you don’t know what it is?

    There have been times when I have felt the same. It’s not unusual to question the direction your life is taking.

    But have you considered that you don’t really have to discover a special purpose in life?

    What if you can design your purpose every single day? What if your life has multiple purposes, the same way we have multiple roles in life—a spouse, a parent, a friend, an employee, a citizen, a human being.

    What if you just strived to be a person who attempts to do the best in one or more of these roles – everyday?

    Ask yourself, “Did I do my best to find meaning in my life today?”

    Out of all the above questions, this is probably the most powerful of all. Take the responsibility of finding meaning in your life every day. I believe that meaning already exists; we just don’t recognize it. Well, now you can—every day.

    It’s All Up to You

    I believe that life is a gift. Life itself is extraordinary.

    All of us will not find equal success in relationships, work, finances, or health. However, we can choose to do the best with the limited means that we have. We can choose to make a sincere effort to live life to the fullest every single day.

    These are just a few daily questions that can take you in the direction of creating an extraordinary life.

    What areas of your life do you want to focus on? What daily questions will you ask yourself?

    Woman thinking image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Lessons on Living a Long, Healthy Life, from a 90-Year-Old

    5 Lessons on Living a Long, Healthy Life, from a 90-Year-Old

    Happy Old Woman

    “In the end, long life is the reward, strength, and beauty.” ~Grace Paley

    In September 2014, my grandmother turned ninety years old. She lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is where she has lived her entire life, and while my parents could have brought her to live with them in the US a long time ago, she has always preferred to live independently in her hometown.

    I went to Rio to celebrate my grandmother’s ninetieth birthday. Although I was born there, I had not been back for over twenty-five years. I learned a lot about my country of birth, my hometown, and my relatives on that trip, but the most important things that I learned were from my grandmother.

    She is healthier, more active, and more independent than most seventy-year-olds. By simply observing her, I learned some key lessons about what it takes to have a very healthy and long life. Here are the five keys to her longevity.

    The Importance of Being Physically Active

    When you imagine someone in their nineties, you probably imagine a person who has difficulty moving because of body aches, stiff joints, muscle loss, and a lack of stamina. You may imagine someone who needs a cane or walker to get around and can’t walk long distances without needing to stop for a break.

    My grandmother is definitely not that person. She is very active every day. She cleans her apartment, cooks her meals, and does her laundry. She also goes to the market, the bank, the post office, and anywhere else she needs to go on foot.

    Because she lives in a big city and almost everything she needs is within walking distance, my grandmother is able to walk to most places.

    She doesn’t walk because she thinks it’s good for her. No doctor has ever told her that she needs to be more active. She is active because it’s how she has always lived her life.

    My grandmother is twice my age, but she moves more on a daily basis than I do. I have to make a conscious effort to perform as much physical daily activity as she does. My grandmother doesn’t have to go to a gym to work out; her daily life is all the work out she needs.

    The Importance of Living Independently

    Although she has many relatives who live close by (her younger sister lives in the same building), my grandmother has lived on her own for over thirty years. She manages her finances, makes all her own decisions, and doesn’t need to rely on anyone to provide for her basic day-to-day needs.

    She takes care of everything herself every day. As a result, she has been able to remain confident in her abilities and her judgment.

    My grandmother doesn’t feel like the world is moving too fast for her to keep up. She knows how to use modern technology, stays current on world events and local politics, and has no problem speaking her mind. She knows that she is vital and doesn’t need anyone to tell her what to do or how to do it.

    Nothing intimidates her.

    The Importance of Mental Wellness

    For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has loved to crochet. Both my mother and I have boxes of table runners, bedspreads, and countless doilies that she has created for us over the decades.

    There is plenty of anecdotal information as well as scientific research showing that crafts such as crocheting and knitting are good for your brain.

    Some of the ways that crochet has been shown to improve brain wellness are by:

    • increasing mindfulness
    • requiring problem-solving
    • improving hand-eye coordination
    • encouraging creativity
    • improving ability to focus

    If you think about it, the act of crocheting is very similar to the practice of meditation. Crochet is relaxing and repetitive, requiring focus without any stress. In fact, for my grandmother it has always been a stress-reducer and (without her even realizing it) a way for her to be fully present.

    The Importance of Close Relationships

    Although my grandmother lives alone, she has many relatives who also live in Rio. Her younger sister lives in a different apartment in the same building and they spend several hours every day together. The sisters are extremely close, but they both benefit from the independence they are afforded by having their own homes.

    My grandmother is also a big part of the lives of her relatives who live abroad. She speaks to and Facetimes with my mother almost daily. She also remains in close touch with her grandchildren and her great-grandson through letters, phone calls, and video chats.

    My grandmother may live alone, but she is never lonely. She chooses when to spend time with others and how much time she wants to spend them. She has worked a balance between being involved and remaining independent that works out perfectly for her.

    She knows how important she is to all those around her. She knows she is still appreciated which provides a great boost to her emotional well being.

    The Importance of Feeling Useful to Others

    My grandmother doesn’t just live close by to her younger sister; she is also her unofficial caretaker. My great-aunt lost her sight several years ago and can no longer do a lot of things for herself.

    My grandmother knows that her sister truly needs her. She does all the cooking for her and they share daily meals. She also helps her by running errands and performing other daily tasks that have become much too challenging for her.

    One of the most powerful books I have ever read is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. In his book, Frankl states that finding a meaning that gives us something to live for is our best source of happiness and longevity.

    My grandmother is a perfect example of Frankl’s statement. Although she and her sister bicker sometimes (as all sisters do), when I see them together I know that they have an unbreakable bond. And I know that my grandmother benefits just as much from that bond as her sister does.

    —

    These are the five keys to a long and healthy life that I have learned from my grandmother. If you want to live as long and happy a life as she has, be sure to find ways to stay physically active, maintain your independence as much as possible, enjoy activities that will keep your mind sharp, nurture your close relationships, and find a way to provide and care for others.

    Do you have any longevity lessons that you have learned?

    Happy old woman image via Shutterstock